A digital book is also known as an e-book is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English, as “an electronic version of a printed book which can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose.” E-books are usually read on dedicated hardware devices known as e-Readers or e-book devices. Personal computers and some cell phones can also be used to read e-books.
Numerous e-book formats have emerged and proliferated, some supported by major software companies, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers naturally followed multiple formats, most of them specializing in only one format, and thereby further fragmenting the e-book market.
To add to this fragmentation, the price of an e-book reader far exceeds that of a single book, and e-books often cost the same as their print versions. Due to the high cost of the initial investment in some form of e-reader, e-books are cost prohibitive to a large amount of the world's population.
Furthermore, the formats and file types that e-books are stored and distributed in change over time, for instance from advances in technology or the introduction of new proprietary formats. While printed books remain readable for many years, e-books may need to be copied to a new carrier over time.
Notwithstanding, e-books have many advantages some of which include: the ease and cost of publishing and distributing e-books, the ease of updating previous editions of e-books, the immediate availability of e-books as opposed to going to a bookshop or awaiting delivery of a printed book, the ability to translate books into many different languages, making the works available to speakers of languages not covered by printed translations, and the environmental benefits of not consuming paper and ink and, in general, utilizing far less raw materials.
Accordingly, there is there is a need to overcome the significant shortcomings delineated hereinabove, to retain the advantages noted hereinabove, and to provide new innovations.